Lost Weekend
by BobLoblawLawBlog
Summary: After a disastrous week trying to repair the city, Korra spends a whole weekend at Mako and Bolin's place. Shenanigans and angst ensue. Last chapter posted. Rated M for shmex.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **This is just an itch I needed to scratch. It's long and kind of rambly, but it's romantic and smutty in parts. Enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

The daylight was beginning to fail as Korra approached Police Headquarters, and a stabbing pain—the first of what promised to be a fierce headache—began to throb behind her left eye. It had been a brutal week of hearings with one day left to go before the Council recessed. She was thoughtfully massaging the bridge of her nose when she saw Mako approaching, back in street clothes after his shift and jogging happily towards her. It had been a while since they'd had the opportunity for a date, and she tried to work up a veneer of enthusiasm that she couldn't quite feel behind the dullness in her brain and the creeping numbness in her body.

It had been four months since the Revolution, four months since her bending had been taken. And while she had been made whole, the process of healing Republic City had been arduous, with no end in sight.

He greeted her with a brief kiss. "How was it today?" he asked.

She smiled weakly, "Same as usual. You know."

He did know. Sort of.

When they had returned from the South Pole, the rebuilding had already begun. The Council had been re-formed—with a new Water representative—under instructions from the central governing authority of the United Republic to begin taking the necessary steps to repair infrastructure and homes and restore government services to their full function. Korra had, of course, been eager to dive in and began at what had seemed, to her, the obvious starting point: healing everyone whose bending had been taken by Amon. But then things got complicated. Then Triad members and known criminals and stepped up to be restored, and people had protested-violently, in some cases.

"What do you want to eat? Noodles?" Mako asked. Over her shoulder, she could feel passersby staring at them, though maybe she was just paranoid. There were still enough Amon sympathizers or people just looking for someone to blame for a casual walk down the street to go sideways with a quickness. No reasonable people were interested in starting something with an Avatar at the height of her powers, but not everyone in Republic City was reasonable right now. And then there was the press.

"Sure!" she said brightly. "Noodles sound great." She was hoping they could get in and out of the restaurant before the evening paper hit the newsstands. Today had not gone particularly well.

Mako wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and hers rested on his waist when she heard him suddenly suck in air through his teeth.

"What?" she said sharply. "Are you hurt?"

"It's nothing," he gasped through involuntarily gritted teeth.

"Sure thing, tough guy," she said, unbuttoning his coat and lifting up his shirt to see a bright red burn mark clumsily hidden by a hastily applied bandage. She pulled it up at the edge and saw that it was sticky and glowed unhealthily."

"An Agni Kai resisted arrest," he confessed through gritted teeth. "Don't worry about it. I've had much worse."

"Why didn't you have someone look at it?"

He sputtered something out about how his supervisor would have sent him to the hospital, where he would have been delayed at least an hour. And anyway, he'd been treating his and Bolin's burns their entire lives, and…

"So, you're going to be just fine sitting through dinner with that?"

"Of course!" he said, as she lightly touched the exposed skin and he cursed in surprise.

"Uh huh. Ok, Officer. Dinner can wait. I'm taking you home and working on that first."

She felt slightly terrible on account of his injury, but she was relieved for the excuse to avoid a crowded restaurant. And relaxing ever so slightly, she took his hand as they walked toward his and his brother's new apartment, conveniently close to headquarters.

Inside, he took his coat and shirt off. She ran the tap in the tiny kitchen and drew the water into her hands, applying it gently to his side. "Since you waited so long, this is going to hurt for a while. You're going to need to keep a _decent _bandage on it for at least a few more days."

"You're the boss," he grunted as the pain intensified ever so slightly under her touch before gradually subsiding.

Just then, Bo came out from his room looking like he was on a mission. "Hey, you two. It's cool if you want to call it a night early, but the LEAST you can do is check to see if I'm here before you start getting na … whoa!" His teasing was interrupted once he got a look at the gooey red splotch on his brother's skin. "Well THAT doesn't look too good."

"It's fine, Bo," Mako exhaled, blushing and a little exasperated.

"I was just running down to Narook's to get some takeout. You guys want anything?"

"My hero," sighed Korra, smiling weakly in his direction.

"Usual?"

"You know it."

Mako nodded.

"Sorry," she said when Bolin left. "I know this isn't what you had in mind." She let the water fall into the sink and run back down the drain as she checked to make sure that the burn was already starting to crust over. "All done," she said before kissing the fresh bandage and rising on her toes to gather his lips with hers and loop her arms around his neck. Just to remind her that he could, he lifted her a few inches off the ground and pressed deeper into her mouth, tracing the outline of her teeth with the tip of his tongue. She hummed and pulled away slowly, "Looks like the patient's going to live. Now put me down. I need to go wash my face."

He obeyed, and she retreated to the bathroom to splash water on herself and check the mirror to be sure that her eyes weren't still puffy and swollen from before. She wasn't sure why this day, of all days, had gotten to her, and she didn't want to have to explain herself to the guys.

When she got back to the kitchen, Mako was making tea, and she let him tell the story leading up to his war wound knowing that he would likely repeat it, with embellishments, to Bolin later on. They had a lot to catch up on after a week or so of separation, and his stories were more interesting than determining where earthbender teams would be deployed next to repair infrastructure or which boroughs were still losing power when the overtaxed grid overloaded.

The quiet of the apartment felt good. They had just moved in earlier in the month, and she had only seen the place once when she was helping them get settled. Even though it was at the center of the city, it felt eerily cut off from everything else. And though the only furniture in the room so for was the kitchen table, the old couch from the arena, and a radio, there was a shabby comfort to it all that made her body start to uncoil.

When Bolin got home, he was carrying the evening edition along with his paper sack. "Korra, you made the front page!" he said. He said it as if this was the first time.

"Did you read the headline?" she asked.

Bolin dumped his armload on the table, and the paper unrolled to reveal a picture of Korra looking stricken and the words, ARENA ATTACK VICTIM PUBLICALLY HOLDS AVATAR RESPONSIBLE FOR HUSBAND'S DEATH. She blanched. "Oh," Bolin said remorsefully before gathering it up and taking it to the waste bin. "I just saw the picture and grabbed it. I wasn't…"

"Don't sweat it," she said. "I was there. I just don't need to read about it." Her headache had become suddenly noticeable again, and she realized she needed food. Desperately. She grabbed her white box, and the three of them set about eating with abandon, Mako asking silent questions of her with his eyes as Bolin chattered about trying out new teammates. _Just don't even_, her glance said. It wasn't remotely worth it. This wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. She couldn't imagine why the paper would print this kind of thing except that nothing novel had come out of the Sato investigation for a while and news was getting slow.

It was nice just to listen to them talk. Opportunities for this sort of thing had become so rare, their schedules never quite lining up. It made her think wistfully of when they were just the Fire Ferrets, which wasn't even a year ago. But still.

While Mako cleaned up dinner, Korra and his brother retreated to the couch, rifled through the magazines, and turned on the radio. When he was finished, Bolin moved to the floor so that his brother could sit next to Korra. Even if he wasn't aware of just how beat she was, the fact that she wasn't mourning their spoiled date wasn't lost on Mako, and he had registered her unusual silence during dinner. Using her coat for a pillow, she let him pull her head onto his knee, take down her hair and comb his fingers through it, the sensation of his fingernails against her scalp soothing the persistent pain. If Bolin hadn't been there, she'd have rolled up her shirt and made him scratch her back.

She didn't intend to fall asleep. And in truth, she didn't really sleep so much as she dozed, fitfully, for a few minutes, an hour or so here and there, which had become something of a pattern. She heard snatches of the radio program and fragments of conversation. At some point, Mako had picked her up and carried her to his big bed, the one luxury he had allowed himself with his earnings. _"Sleeping on pavement makes you appreciate a good mattress_," he'd said when he bought it, but she knew she'd factored into the decision even if he'd been too shy to bring it up. Korra was aware as he helped her off with her boots and put her under the covers. When she woke up at three in the morning, she found the warm place in the crook of his shoulder and let herself be pulled back under until sunrise.

* * *

When Mako was shaving early the following morning, he heard an urgent knock on the bathroom door. "Get out of there. I need to be at City Hall in half an hour, and I need to splash water on my face or something before I head out."

"Shit," he cursed himself, realizing he should have woken her up earlier. He opened the door even though he was in nothing but a towel.

"Well, morning, handsome, but I'm late enough already," she teased. But he could see that her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with deep shadows. He wondered if she'd looked this exhausted the night before and why he hadn't noticed.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"Oh." She got defensive. "Hey, I'm sorry for crashing here without asking. It was accident, and if I kept you up..."

He tilted her head up with one finger and slowly took her bottom lip between his to shut her up."Korra, I'd gladly wake up to you every single morning even if you do carry on conversations with Pabu all night."

"What did I say?" She was trying to be light, but he cut to the point.

"Korra, it's hard for me to say this without sounding like a selfish ass, but do you think you might be working just a bit too hard lately?"

Her shoulders sagged, "Look, I know we haven't gotten to see a lot of each other, but there's not a lot I can do about it." She didn't tell him that lately her sense of irrelevance to the Council proceedings had been particularly acute. There was a lot of pain and a lot of trouble, and it felt like she had accomplished precisely dick in the few weeks since she'd finished restoring bending.

"Well, can you take a break over the holiday?"

"Tenzin wants to use it for airbending practice. The whole glider thing is turning out to be harder than I thought, and I haven't been practicing much lately, and…" her voice rose in pitch as she ran off the litany of things she needed to do and the people she needed to do it for.

Mako pressed his lips together as he threw on a fresh undershirt, the towel still wrapped around his waist, and put his hands on her shoulders. Looking serious, he moved her gently out of the doorway before walking toward the kitchen. Korra was confused but remembered the time and started cleaning herself up. She was setting her wolftails in order when he returned, took her hand, and pressed a small metal object into it.

"It's a key to the apartment," he said. "Bolin has a date tonight, and I have a late shift. If you can hold Tenzin off, you can have the place all to yourself for a while. Leave your work at City Hall. Come in disguise if you're worried about the press. I'll make sure no one bugs you."

She turned the key over in her hand skeptically. "I don't know. I promised…"

"You can use the tub," he interrupted, knowing she had eyed it with envy after months of community bathrooms on the Island and what he remembered were less than modern accommodations at the South Pole. He planted a kiss on her forehead before running off to make coffee. "Think about it."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **There's plenty of romantic stuff in this chapter, I promise, but I wanted to indulge a little idea I've been having first. I imagine that in the wake of Amon's revelation, some equivalent of the 9/11 Truther movement would spring up, and that led to a little riff on internet conspiracy culture with a couple of (affectionate) pokes at the fandom. Hope you like it.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

It had long since become impractical to bring Naga into the city. They attracted too much attention together. So, Korra had taken to throwing on an old trench coat and turning the collar up as she walked to Council meetings every day that she didn't come in with Tenzin (which was most days). As she left the boys' apartment, the sky was slate grey, and the air was so moist she could have summoned a tidal wave. The day wanted to rain in that way that Korra sometimes wanted to sneeze but just couldn't.

There was a bigger crowd outside City Hall than there had been yesterday, and with a groan she remembered why.

"I don't know how they got a place on the docket," Tenzin had said earlier in the week.

"Don't you, like, have some sort of say in that?" returned his pupil, getting a huffy glance in return.

The Republic City Truth Seekers were regarded in most informed circles as cranks, but they had managed to garner a lot of attention, primarily due to their volume and the ubiquity of their leaflets. "Was the Arena an Inside Job?" read one. "Amon's Identity (And His Secret Government-Funded Hideout)," said another. The gist of it was that they believed that the entire Equalist revolution had been orchestrated by the Council for…what purpose exactly no one was sure. That wasn't the point. The point was that they had an overarching theory that seemed to explain everything, and for some people that was comforting. There were other, even less believable theories about Korra—that she wasn't really Water Tribe, really the Avatar, etc.

Tenzin, shaking his head, had told her that apparently the new Council member thought it would help if they just brought the conversation out in the open. "It rarely does," he had said, speaking from experience. "Irrationality finds ways to perpetuate itself no matter what. And now we are giving it stage."

What this meant is that the day was excruciating. Three times, the metalbending cops had to clear the Council chamber gallery. The chosen Truth Seeker representatives didn't have arguments so much as they had hunches, but efforts to point out gaps in their reasoning only made people angrier. Korra, in particular, had felt a lot of the abuse. It wasn't anything she hadn't heard or read before, but the accumulation of it was wearing. _How do I help people who think I'm lying about the most basic facts of who I am? _

As the day wore on, she felt herself retreating behind a wall of numbness, trying to avoid giving the cameras any strong emotions to capture.

Later, however, when one man had tried to present evidence that she had faked the loss of her bending, she lost it. She hadn't meant to, of course, but it happened. And at the end of the day, in Tenzin's office, he told her everything she already knew about how this didn't help, and Korra put her fist in the wall and brought it back with bloody knuckles. He'd watched in silence as she stormed out of the office, down the hallway, and into the street. And he sighed, finding it hard to really be that angry at her given the circumstances. They'd talk about it when she was ready. And she'd bribe Bolin into fixing the wall.

In the street, she realized she'd forgotten her trenchcoat, and just her luck, a waterbender from the gallery recognized her and felt like picking a fight. It didn't turn out to be _muc_h of a fight, but before turning tail down a back alley, he had managed to drench the Avatar with water from a nearby sewer that shimmered with oil and reeked like a latrine. Sometimes the universe forces your hand. It was late, and it was getting dark.

The first sight she saw when she entered the apartment nearly made her cry: "Soup's on the stove. Noodles are in the fridge. Make yourself at home. Love." She hadn't eaten lunch, and her stomach felt hollow. She fired up the stove and took sips of the broth straight out of the pot with Mako's giant stirring spoon. Then she remembered that she stank. Rooting in the ice box for a white paper container, she put her noodles in a bowl and ladled some broth over them before retreating to the bathroom where the claw-foot tub was waiting for her.

Her clothes were disgusting. She balled them up and threw them in a corner, vowing to deal with them later. The hot water that flowed into the tub turned to steam when it met the air, and she ate and watched the mirror fog while it filled. An idle finger traced the symbols of the four elements in the condensation.

Baths in the Southern Water Tribe meant melting snow in a giant basin in the kitchen, and since she learned how, Korra had relished the feeling of warming the water with her own fire and could sit there on a cold winter day until her hands looked like Master Katara's. There were also hot springs in caves that she and Naga would hunt for until the panicked calls of White Lotus guardians flushed them out.

She took her hair down and ducked her head under water, staying under as long as her breath lasted. Which was a long time. Cocooned in her home element in a place that made no demands and reminded her of no obligations, this was a deeper silence than meditation. Her hand sought out a bar of soap, _his_, she thought, and she scrubbed her skin until it started to show red. It was wonderful, sometimes, to just be a body, to forget the metaphysics of what she was and just feel her flesh.

She was still in the tub when she heard Bolin's voice. And another voice. A girl's. She panicked a little bit. He wasn't supposed to be there, and he didn't know she was. His footsteps approached the bathroom door, and she pulled her knees to her chest and shouted, "Bo!" just as the door cracked and Bolin yelped.

"Shit, Korra! You scared me to death! What are you doing in there?"

"I got into a fight," she said to the left side of his head, which he'd turned out of embarrassment to the narrow opening. "I just needed to clean off."

"Sure. You know Mako's working late tonight, right?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, well can you do me a favor and get my money out of the bottom drawer. I forgot it." The boys hid money in weird places.

"No peeking," she teased, and dangled an arm out of the tub, digging around in the vanity until her hand found a little stack of yuans. She scooted it along the tile, and Bolin kneeled down, feeling around near the door frame until he had it.

"Thanks, Korra."

"Sure thing."

Bolin's footsteps retreated back to the kitchen, and she heard a feminine voice say, "Is the _Avatar _in your _bathroom_?"

_Well, at least I got him laid, _she thought, rising out of water that had turned milky with soap and which she hadn't bothered to warm for a while.

In Mako's room, she found a clean button-down shirt and a pair of shorts. She'd find laundry soap and take care of her stuff later. She totally would. She stretched out on his bed and thought about Mako finding her there, in his clothes. And the thought pleased her.

On the floor next to the bed was a stack of books. Under the direction of a 10-year old, Mako had started making up for lost time, and Korra recalled with a laugh the armload he'd carried off the Island from Jinora's personal collection. On top was a copy of _A Brief History of the Fire Nation_, which Korra remembered reading under duress when she was twelve and liked bending far more than books. His marker was at the chapter on Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin. And without entirely meaning to, she read and was surprised by how much she hadn't remembered. She read of the time when Roku had destroyed the palace and let Sozin keep his life only to have Sozin turn around and do what he wanted to do anyway. _I'm a fuck up in more than one life, _she thought as her eyes got suddenly heavy and she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Mako came home to a mess on the counter and knew she was there. A light was streaming from his bedroom, and he saw a brown foot against the white blanket and tried to be quiet while he got a very late supper and put things to right. He walked in the room to find her, swallowed up in his shirt with a book splayed out on her stomach. There were some sights in life he had been sure he would never see, but she kept showing them to him, like she showed him the aurora australis in the South Pole. Two nights in a row with her in his bed was more than he ever could have hoped for.

With a steady hand, he turned out the electric light and tried to take the book out of her hands without bothering her. He'd promised no one would bother her. Even him. She moaned a little bit, but her face stayed serene, and he noticed the purple marks around her eyes were fainter than they had seemed that morning.

In the bathroom, he found her clothes, _which she had been meaning to get to_. And he recognized the oil stains and smell of street water that his own clothes had carried at one point. He carried them into the kitchen and ran the sink, dumping in some soap and leaving them to soak overnight. He hoped the stains would take a while to scrub out, and she would have to stay and wait at least until he was finished.

Dressed for bed, he pulled back the covers and tried to get under them as gently as possible. But he heard her roll over and saw a pair of blue eyes shining at him. "Hey," she said.

"You're here." He was feigning surprise.

"You knew I'd come. Thanks for the food. And the note."

"I wasn't sure." He scooted over to her side, which was technically _his _side, and caught the hand that was splayed out on the pillow in his.

"You knew," she said and moved until there was only an inch between them.

He opened her hand and placed a lingering kiss on her palm. "So, how was your day?" The end of the question went up too high, and she could tell he was making fun of her, that he knew something.

"I punched a hole in Tenzin's wall."

His eyebrows perked up, "Oh?"

"It was bad today. I got angry."

"You? You don't say."

"Shut up."

"And what else?"

"I got in a fight. In an alley on the way here."

"I guess that explains the clothes."

"I meant to take care of that."

"I'm sure you did," he said in a tone that made her bite her bottom lip and cuff his shoulder. He caught her wrist and guided it around his waist, pulling her close and pressing his nose and lips to her throat, where he could feel her pulse keeping time with his. "They're ruined, by the way. You'll just have to walk home in my shirt and underwear."

"Or I could just stay here forever."

"Even better." His hand traced the ridges of her spine through the white cotton before slipping underneath and lightly massaging her sensitive skin with his fingernails. She hummed.

"Bo came by," she said lazily into his shoulder. "He forgot his cash."

He sagged into her, "Idiot. I'm sorry. I said I'd try to make sure no one bugged you."

"Yeah, well." She brushed her lips against his. "You should know by now that you can't always keep your promises."

"I really try." He kissed her mouth softly, brushing the tip of his nose against her cheekbone.

"You do."

She kissed him harder and let her right leg cross over his, his left finding a spot between her warm thighs as he realized, somehow for the first time, just how little there was between them. In the scattered moments they'd had alone like this, they had developed a kind of protocol. It involved kissing, which led to hands slowly but hungrily making their way under clothes. From time to time, one of them would blaze a trail to new patches of unexplored flesh, and they would add that to the list. There was the bare small of her back, her upper thigh, the place where her breasts met her ribs, then her breasts themselves. She'd gasped with surprise and delight when his thumb first found its way beneath her underthings to her nipple.

And her hands had discovered the sensitive place below his navel and the barely there curve of his ass. Then this one time, in a moment of ardor so intense it took his breath away, he had roamed below her belt line, and she had guided his fingers to the places she touched when she thought of him. And he had shown her how to do the same.

A month ago, Pema had taken Korra aside to ask her how their relationship was going and to quietly slip something into her hand that Korra had started carrying with her at all times. Just in case. And it was for this that she excused herself from bed briefly before returning to an unvoiced question in his eyes and draping her body over his.

Their mouths moved together, tongues exploring the backsides of teeth, the outlines of lips, while she quietly unbuttoned her shirt. Realizing what she was doing, he rolled them over, hips settling in the curve of her thighs, and helped her.

"I want you," she whispered.

"You wouldn't kid me…" he started, and she smacked him on the back of his head before firmly pressing her hips into his and spurring him to a new sense of urgency.

He pulled her up with him so that they could remove shirts before bearing her back down and reaching down into her shorts to briefly postpone what she said she wanted. She almost slapped him again. But he caught her wrist and pressed her harder into the bed. "Be patient," he hissed.

"You know I hate that." Nevertheless, she moved against his hand, resuming the rhythm they'd established when they'd been to this place before.

Mako had…experience, but not like this. Once he turned fourteen, older gang members used to give women money to pay attention to him, sometimes because he did something good. And sometimes just because they liked to see him blush. He supposed whatever he had fumbled through then technically counted as "sex," but relative to what they were doing now, it was like saying flipping a light switch was firebending.

It wasn't perfect. Her flesh was willing but untried. And he'd sunk into her inch by breathless inch before she wrapped her legs around his waist and brought him home. Her movements were anxious, desperate, seeking release through his body. But he had to detach himself from her sighing to avoid slipping over the edge. Her sighs became cries that he muffled with his kiss and let her bite into the white flesh on his shoulder. But the cost of delaying his climax was that he had to trouble her body a little longer than was comfortable before he joined her, spent in a tangled heap, his head on the pillow of her breasts and her fingers carding through his hair.

"I don't know what I'm doing," her voice whispered out of the darkness, surprising him out of a doze.

"I don't really either, but that didn't seem to matter."

"No…I mean, well yes, but I mean with everything. There are things going on there that I just don't know how to deal with."

"Yeah, but I'm ok with that. If you thought you had all the answers, you wouldn't be a good Avatar."

"I love you," was her only response. He rolled onto his side and pulled her naked body to align with his, and they drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**A/N: **That's all for now folks, but I have ideas for stringing out this unwieldy, almost plot-less beast a little more. Thanks for the alerts!


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **This chapter was a bitch to write for some reason. Fair warning: there's smut ahead.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

When Korra woke up the next morning, she was alone and wondered for a brief second if the previous day had been a dream. But she was naked, and the pillow next to her smelled like him, and she felt a pleasure tinged with regret when she looked from the nest his body left to the bloody knuckles on her right hand. _I wonder how pissed Tenzin is_.

The thought was arrested when Mako walked through the door carrying a tray with two bowls of congee and two steaming mugs of tea. She moved quickly to cover herself with the sheet, and he grinned at her when he met her slightly bewildered eyes.

"I'm not sick, Mako," she said, a little sharply. She never ate a meal in bed unless she couldn't physically get out of it, which was rare.

"Well, I can't exactly have you wandering around the apartment like _that. _Anyway, I thought I'd try to keep you in here a little longer. Chill. It's supposed to be romantic or something."

He sat cross-legged on the bed facing her, and she propped herself up on some pillows before accepting the tea he offered. She was being careful to keep her chest covered, and he noticed.

"I've seen you naked plenty of times. You don't have to cover up," he said.

"Well, you've got me at a disadvantage here, pal." She gestured at his undershirt and shorts. "Besides, this is all still just a little weird. Nice, I mean, but weird."

He smirked, "That's not what you were saying last night."

Her blush reached all the way to the roots of her hair. "Well, like I said, _nice_, but…"

"Ok, well speaking of weird. I have to tell you something you're not going to like, and I want you to put that tea down for a second so I don't get scalded."

Uh oh.

"Tenzin called."

Her eyes were as wide as saucers.

"You had to assume he would, Korra. You kind of left him hanging. I told him you were here."

She groaned and buried her head in the pillow next to her.

"He sounded relieved just to know where you were. Anyway, he's an adult. If you've talked to Pema about us, then…"

"Yeah." Her voice was still muffled by the pillow. When she looked up, he was holding out a bowl of food like a peace offering. After a beat, she took it and started wolfing it down without meeting his eyes.

"I just wish he didn't have to know _all _of my business all the time. It'd be nice to just be able to disappear sometimes and have no one care."

"I'm speaking from experience here when I say that no, you don't want that. You're important to a lot of people, Korra. That's a luxury some don't have."

"Do you lecture Bolin this much over breakfast?"

"I'm not trying to lecture, but if you asked him, probably yeah."

They ate in silence for a little while, but the conversation was continuing inside her head.

"I don't want you to think I'm ashamed or anything," she said. "Of us, I mean. This is just really new for me, and there's a _lot _going on right now. And I kind of feel like my life's under a microscope."

He reached out and squeezed her hand. They weren't excellent at this talking thing yet, but there were things that they could communicate without words.

"Does this mean you want to go home?"

"Cat's already out of the bag. I guess it doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of difference."

A little bit wounded, he gathered their empty dishes and made as if to take them away.

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that," she implored. "I want to stay." The truth was that in 18 years it had never really occurred to her to want anything normal. Her life had revolved around training schedules alleviated by brief outings with Naga until it was disrupted by war. This coming back to a quiet apartment with nary a sifu in sight, lazily making love and sleeping until whenever was a complete novelty, one she was maybe a little afraid of getting used to.

From the foot of the bed, he was looking into her eyes with a particular intensity. He loved her, she knew, and he loved her in his bed, eating his food. She sensed that he enjoyed creating this messy kind of luxury for them both. The quasi-parental tone he sometimes took with her poorly masked a need for closeness that was almost child-like. As she met the searching gaze that was trying to read her mind, she felt a twinge, almost painful, between her legs and was keenly aware, once again, of her vulnerability. "And why are you the only one in this room who gets to have clothes on, anyway?"

Almost tortuously slow and without breaking eye contact, he sat down his stack of bowls and mugs and lifted his shirt over his head. She was, by this point, comfortable with his body, but the sight of it in broad daylight like this still made her stop breathing for a second. Her heartbeat was the only sound she could hear in the room as she forgot completely about Tenzin or about the council or about who knew what about her and her life.

After what felt like an hour, he was naked in front of her, and he allowed her a moment of triumph before grabbing the blankets at the foot of the bed and yanking them off her in one swift, fluid motion. "Now things are fair," he said.

She kicked at him playfully, and he caught her right ankle, pulling her body down the bed. As she continued to fight a little bit, he brought her foot to his mouth and started kissing her toes one at a time. "That tickles," she said, but the sensations were rocketing all the way up to her stomach.

He stopped before opening his mouth on the sole of her foot, using his tongue and teeth until her back arched and an involuntary moan escaped her lips. "Do you trust me?" he asked, a blazing look in his eyes.

"Yes," she whispered.

He was now sucking on her big toe. "Then close your eyes," he said.

For once, she obeyed and reveled in the sensation of his mouth pressing against her ankle, her Achilles tendon, her calf, the sensitive underside of her knee. He burned a path up one leg before biting her on the upper thigh just hard enough to make her gasp before pulling away to get to work on the other one.

_The fuck is he doing_, she thought, but she didn't stop him. The tension between her legs was becoming unbearable, and she was fighting the urge to simply get up and tackle him. Instead, she willed herself to stay still as he continued making his way, slowly and patiently, up the outer side of her left leg. His teeth grazed her hip bone as his hands cupped her behind from underneath and pulled her all the way to the edge of the bed. She felt him draw her knees over his shoulders, and then his mouth was _there._

His tongue was rough and warm and impossibly soft, and with one hand steady on her lower belly, he used the other to draw her even closer to him. She thought she could feel herself becoming detached from the earth, like going into the Avatar state but not quite. It was unlike the feeling of the night before, where both the pleasure and discomfort had been knife-sharp. And it was unlike the times he explored her with his hands. This was like waterbending, riding a wave of arousal that lifted her body and crested so gently that it felt like it could carry her forever. She was aware that she was breathing in gasps with one hand clutching the mattress and another practically pulling his hair out. And then, like a jerk, he thrust his tongue into her and _moaned_, and the vibrations sent her cascading down from an impossible height, her legs shaking as he steadied them with his strong hands.

Still reeling, eyes shut, she heard him get up and fumble around before flopping on the bed next to her. And when she opened her eyes, his face was insufferably smug. "Hey," he said, and swifter than a river, she was on him, surprised by how easily he glided into her this time, and it was his turn to look stricken, melting beneath her like wax in the summer sun.

For a while, she stayed still, relishing the fullness between her legs and the look of desperation in his eyes. "Be patient," she said, smiling mischievously. And she began rocking her hips slowly, earning a groan each time she moved. Her hands were on his chest, and his were gripping her thighs so hard she was sure they'd leave marks. Settling into a lazy rhythm, she could feel that tightness building in her once again. But by now, he was almost dying, and when she picked up a little bit of speed, he erupted into her. His voice, calling her name, sounded far away as she let him pull her close and wrap himself around her. It was difficult to complain, but her body still throbbed with arousal.

* * *

No one was more surprised than Mako by the intensity of their need for each other and by the abandon with which they enjoyed each other's bodies with the knowledge that Bolin was tied up with practice matches all day. After their morning tryst, they had fooled around in the shower until the water got cold. And then she had watched while he cleaned her clothes, wrapped up in a robe that was way too big for her, and nearly driven him nuts with her teasing until he'd hoisted her up on the kitchen counter and she'd worked his shorts off with her feet and they'd had each other roughly and quickly but so satisfyingly.

It was more than just physical chemistry, though of course they had plenty of that. Beneath the desire was a need to be unmade by each other, to briefly become not quite themselves, to indulge the need for intimacy that lived beneath their fierce independence and self-sufficiency.

But now they were dressed, and she was sprawled out on his sofa reading the sports page with her feet in his lap while he returned to his book. It was a little weird, he thought, reading about one Avatar with another lying, slightly disheveled, next to him. There would be books written about her one day, and it was perhaps as much out of a desire to understand her as a desire to fill in the enormous gaps in his learning, that he read.

"What are you getting out of that?" she asked suddenly, looking up from her paper.

"You mean besides an education?"

"Yeah, smart ass. I mean, do you like it?"

He shrugged, not quite sure what she was asking. "It's interesting."

They were quiet for a while, but he could feel her eyes on him, searching him, needing something that he couldn't decipher. He loved her in all her contradictions, at once loud and quiet, hard and soft. He had seen her at her most powerful and most vulnerable. And the hand that wasn't holding the book caressed the sensitive skin of feet that could stove in his skull.

"I mean," she started hesitantly, "he screwed up, right?"

"Huh?"

"With the Firelord. He should have ended it when he had a chance, but he didn't, and it got him killed and the world fell apart."

He felt for a second what exactly she was asking, but it was too big for him. She was the Avatar, and he was a kid with a fourth grade reading level. The thought that this was one of many potential covert conversations about her world-historical responsibilities was more than a little terrifying.

"That's not what it says," was all he could come up with.

"I know what it says. I'm interested in what you think."

A long silence passed. "I dunno. It was probably a hard decision, you know? They were friends. He thought he knew what he was dealing with, but sometimes you don't know people as well as you think you do."

She didn't have a response, but she seemed at least a little bit placated. He felt her body relax beside him.

"It matters to me," she said after a while. "What you think."

"I know," he replied, looking deep into her eyes. "And that scares me a little bit."

"It shouldn't." Her eyes closed, like she was getting ready for a nap. "You're smart, smarter than those books."

"I worry I won't always have the answer you need, or the one you want. It's a lot of pressure knowing that my pillow talk could change the world."

"Don't worry. I probably won't listen to you anyway." He laughed, and she smiled sleepily while reaching for his hand. And as she drifted off, he read about a man who was like a god but who was also just a man and who did the best with what he had in the moment. Sometimes things just don't work out, but, he thought, looking at her hand in his, sometimes they do.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

When Bolin came home later in the evening, the air was thick with the fog of their recent argument, and Mako was sure his brother could sense that something was wrong by the way he started doing that thing where he was sort of trying to make peace without ever directly addressing what was going on.

It had started stupidly, as it always did, and like always, Mako wasn't quite sure what exactly _had _happened. After waking up from her nap, Korra had asked where the front section of the newspaper was, and Mako had looked at her like she'd just grown a second head. It had taken Korra all of seventeen seconds to realize that Mako had thrown it away and to demand he go get it for her.

"Why?" he asked, thinking back to two days ago and Korra's reaction to her front-page headline.

"I just want to look," she said, feigning innocence. And his suspicion that she wasn't telling him everything that happened the previous day was renewed. It bothered him that she kept secrets. And his protectiveness bothered her. Which bothered him even more.

His visible exasperation when he rose to go retrieve the missing item, wipe some bits of food off it, and plop it in her lap, only irritated her further.

"I'm a big girl, Mako," she said, defensive in the presence of his paternalism. "I can read the paper if I want."

"But why torture yourself?"

"You think _that's _what I'm doing?"

"Well…"

"This is my fucking _job_," she snapped at him. "It's my fucking life. I need to know what's being said even if it isn't pleasant."

The truth was that while her press coverage generally pissed her off and occasionally ripped her apart inside, she couldn't not be curious about it. It was like a wound that she continually felt the need to worry over and that could never quite heal. It had been such an amazing weekend, the most consecutive hours they'd spent together since the South Pole, and Mako was more than a little peeved that this perverse streak in her was inevitably going to sour it.

The massive and absurdly theatrical demonstrations outside City Hall had made the front page, and Korra's outburst in the council chamber had been relegated to page 6, below the fold. But there was a photo, albeit a small one, and in it she looked wild and a little unhinged. _Is this how people see me?_

Mako did his best not to hover, but he could see the photo from across the room, and he retreated once again into his resentment that she didn't tell him everything. She trusted him in bed, but she didn't fully trust him with this part of her, with the things that were most important to her.

With Bolin back in the mix, they did their best to act civil, but Bolin could always tell. Mako and Korra sat at the table and munched leftovers in silence, letting the younger brother's nervous chatter take up the empty space.

"So, it looks like this waterbender kid is going to work out. I mean, he's no Korra and he's new to pro-bending, but there's promise in him and he's got heart and I think I can really turn him into something…"

He went on like this for a while, barely taking a breath, until Mako couldn't take it anymore.

"Can we go do something?" he said, and the other two looked at him in shock. "I mean, we all have the night off, which never happens. Let's go do something."

"Like what kind of something?" Korra asked, still incredulous.

"I don't know. Things people do on nights like this. Boardwalk? Dancing? Just go sit at a bar?"

He could feel Bolin just blinking at him, more than a tad dumbfounded that his homebody of a brother was suggesting such a thing. But Mako was desperate to get out of an apartment that now felt claustrophobic, desperate to make sure the night didn't end with him and his girlfriend sitting in sullen silence.

"The press…" Korra started. "What if…"

"An hour ago, you seemed fascinated with the press." He couldn't help himself, and the twinge her hurt look sent shivering through his body was fitting punishment.

Bolin shifted uncomfortable, suddenly desperate to get out of the apartment himself.

"If a reporter shows up," Mako started again. "We'll just leave. Ok? There doesn't need to be a scene."

"I don't have anything to wear," she protested.

"Well, I think we all know who to call about that," he said.

* * *

Asami arrived at the apartment with a dress, the name of a jazz venue so new the paint was hardly dry, and the best arm candy she'd been able to conjure up on short notice, a sailor on leave with big muscles and a small vocabulary.

Korra quietly let the older girl do her hair (she drew the line at makeup), listening to her talk up a storm about the new line of airplanes Future Industries had in the works. "What was once an Equalist weapon would soon be the engine of commerce in a new era!" There was an edge of uncertainty in her bravado, and Korra knew from overheard conversations that not all was well with the troubled company, but she let Asami have her moment. They still weren't quite in a place where they could speak frankly, and she knew the Sato woman wanted her to think she was doing well. She seemed excited to have a night out.

The bar was just small enough and just classy enough to feel exclusive without being completely pretentious. Smartly dressed people clustered together at candle-lit tables. The jazz band behind the tiny dance floor was the very essence of cool, and the bartender lazily nodded his head in time with the drums. "Put it all on my tab," Asami said smoothly before dragging her date, who grinned a little too much, onto the dance floor.

The energy between Mako and Korra was still tense, and Bolin fidgeted in their presence for two solid minutes before leaving to troll for single women. Not quite knowing what else to do, Mako ordered drinks for the two of them, which they nursed in silence, not doing a great job of pretending to have a good time. It was possible that this was a terrible idea.

After an eternity, Asami and what's-his-name joined them at the table, breathless and laughing. "THERE you are," she said, a little too loud and clearly a little bit tipsy. "I was just telling him," she said, pointing at her date (did _she _even know his name?) "I don't think Mako even knows what to _do _at a place like this. But Korra … Korra, I expected better from you."

Korra smiled politely and waved her comment away. "I'm just tired," she said. "It's been an intense week."

"Oh, I _heard_," the older girl said, drawing out the final word and scrunching her eyebrows together. She dismissed sailor boy to get her another drink before turning back to Korra with a face of complete seriousness and concern. "I'm telling you Korra, I just don't know how you _stand_ it. Those people are _in-sane_, and I don't know what I'd _do_ if they were saying those sorts of things about me. Well, I guess I sort of do know…"

The truth was that Asami had been forced to deal with bad press and some nasty conspiracy theories about her in the wake of her father's arrest. The young woman was poised as usual but rambling and a little flushed. Nevertheless, Mako noted the way his girlfriend softened in the presence of Asami's commiseration, the way her shoulders relaxed and her arms uncrossed. Testing the waters, he let his hand sneak over and gently squeeze Korra's wrist, and to his delight, she didn't jerk away.

Like an obedient dog who had just retrieved a stick, Asami's date returned with her drink, a grin plastered across his big, dumb, perfectly sculpted face. "Well, give 'em hell, Korra," she said. "We're all proud of you. And try to get Mako to dance. He's terrible, and you look like you could use a laugh."

Mako felt his collar get tight and hot, and Asami just tossed her hair and let herself be whisked away. Bolin was nowhere to be seen. Korra didn't move from her spot, but she threaded her fingers through his and took a long sip from her drink. She still didn't speak, but he decided to take a risk. He waited for a slow song (which he felt like he could handle), walked over to her side of the table, and offered her his hand. She looked at him in surprise for a long moment before accepting his silent offer and allowing him to lead her to the dance floor by the small of her back.

Asami was right, he was a terrible dancer. All he really knew to do was to take Korra's right hand in his left, wrap another around her waist, and sway in time to the music. He barely picked up his feet for fear of stepping on her. She didn't seem to mind. Her grip on his hand and shoulder were relaxed, and for once in the past few hours, it felt like she wasn't on the verge of strangling him. It was odd how quickly they could go from hot to cold. He had been inside of her three times in the last twenty-four hours, as close as two human beings could physically get, but now there was a wall between them. And he hadn't yet figured out the right words to say when things got like this. But he could keep trying. "Asami's right, you know?"

It sounded more like a question than a statement, and the music was too loud for Korra to hear, so she just met his eyes and cocked her eyebrow. "Huh?"

With the arm that circled her waist, he pulled her closer, bringing his head down until his lips almost grazed her ear. Warmth was spilling off of her, and he shut his eyes for a second to drink her in. "Asami was right. We're all proud of you. I know you don't always think she likes you, but she admires you a lot. She always has. And Bo thinks you hung the moon. And Tenzin, Tenzin rides you hard but you should see the way he looks at you when you're not paying attention."

Suddenly, she was gripping his linen shirt hard and pressing her face into his shoulder. _Is she crying?_ He thought he could feel a wet spot forming near his collar. He moved his hand from her waist, pressing it flat against the middle of her back, which was bare in the dress Asami had lent her. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Asami looking at him. And when he met her gaze, he mouthed the words, "Thank you." And she winked.

"And Korra," he continued, the words burning the back of his throat. "I suck at giving advice. And I don't always know the right thing to say or what you need to hear. And I know I get weird and over-protective, but I'm in awe of you. I don't know how it's possible that I have you, and I'm trying hard to be what you need. And it hurts me when you don't talk to me. I just want to understand. I read those books because I'm trying to understand—you and what you have to do…"

He stopped because he didn't think he could keep going without crying in public. So he just held her. And thanked the spirits the band played another slow song so that they could keep swaying. And Korra could collect herself. After what felt like an eternity, she raised her head and pressed a kiss to his cheek. And her lips were hot and wet, and for a second he was lost in the still recent memory of what it felt like to have those lips on every part of his body, to feel her heat enfolding him and bringing him home.

Korra started humming along with the melody. And Bolin was off in a corner chatting up a brunette. And it felt like the perfect end to a strange, tumultuous day.

But of course, there was some asshole. There was always some asshole.

"Hey Avatar." Korra stiffened in Mako's arms, and they both looked in the direction of the voice. The guy was wearing a suit and was clearly half in the bag. The pomade in his short, slicked back hair was starting to fail, and his slightly pudgy face was red and sweating. "Why don't you get up and give another speech?"

The entire bar was now looking in their direction. Mako tried to diffuse the situation, unsuccessfully. "Look, pal, we're just trying to have a good time. Just leave her alone."

"Oh ho! Look at junior cop here!" he taunted, and one of his friends chuckled. "Yeah, that's right, I know who you are, buddy, and I don't think she needs you playing defense for her. This isn't the pro-bending ring."

Mako smiled sardonically and gave a little bow, "Always nice to meet a fan." By this point, Bolin had disentangled himself from the brunette and was walking toward them.

The drunk guy put his hand on Mako's chest and shoved him away before staring Korra dead in the eyes. In her borrowed shoes, she was actually a little taller than him.

She put her hands on her hips in the way she always did when she was deciding whether or not to fight. _At least let them try to hit you first. Then it's self-defense_.

"What's your problem?" she said, and her eyes sent the message that she was not putting up with anyone's shit. Not tonight.

Asami went to look for the manager, and Mako just hoped that this guy would either back off or do something that would justify putting him in jail for a night.

"My problem is you're worthless. I thought the Avatar was supposed to fix everything around here, but you just waited around while some lunatic took over the city. And even when you did show up, you just threw the guy through a window and let him get away. And now you just sit in there with the rest of the worthless council and say the same shit over and over again. And in the meantime, _I just lost my fucking job_. So, tell me, Avatar. What exactly are you doing? How are you going to fix this? What are you doing for _me_?"

The man gathered fire in his hands and a glint formed in Korra's hardening eyes. _Make my fucking day._ She took a step closer to him and raised herself to full height so she was almost staring him down.

"What exactly do you want me to do about that?"

"Do your fucking job," he said.

"My job is to bring balance to the _world_," she said. "Not to fix your personal problems. I help where I can, but I'm not here to grant wishes or wave my fingers and make your bullshit go away. You might have gotten a raw deal, but that's not my fault."

"What good are you, then?"

Korra threw up her hands and laughed mockingly. "None at all, I guess. But I'm starting to see why you got fired. And there's no _way _I'm going to fix the fact that you're a drunk and a bully."

He lunged at her, but she was ready, dodging easily. She didn't strike back immediately. The guy was drunk, and she wanted it to look like she'd given him a chance to make a better decision. He whiffed a few more times when all of a sudden, another fist came out of nowhere and connected with the guy's chin, sending him reeling over a table into a pile of booze and shattered glass. Korra looked stunned and whipped her eyes from Mako to Bolin. "Wasn't us," Bolin shrugged. And then someone pointed over her shoulder at sailor boy, who was shaking his bruised hand and looking exceptionally pleased with himself.

Korra looked at him with exasperation, "Hey, I _had it under control_." A commotion was starting to form, and Mako saw over the heads of the crowd that the manager Asami was arguing with looked like he'd prefer it if they all just left. So he grabbed his girlfriend's elbow and hoped Bo and brawler boyfriend were following in their wake. "Sorry," he said to the manager as they made their way to the exit.

Asami grabbed Mako in the alley while Korra and Bolin walked ahead. "Hey, do me a favor and don't arrest him, ok?"

Mako assumed his best put-upon look and said, "Well, since you asked nicely…"

She cuffed him on the shoulder before dragging her date toward a taxi and making a quick escape.

Bolin was pressing Korra for details when Mako caught up with them. She acted like it was no big deal, but he could see that she was grinning and animated and looking like she felt invincible.

"You want me to walk you back to the Air Temple, or are you staying with us tonight?"

Korra rolled her eyes. "No Air Temple. I'll have to go back tomorrow, but let me put it off for a little longer."

Bolin's eyes went wide with delight.

"Ok, then I think one of us should call Tenzin," and her look told him exactly which one of them that would be.

* * *

Back at the apartment, Bolin tried to keep the party energy going, turning on the radio and bringing out a bottle of sake he'd won off Toza in a bet. He and Korra re-enacted the bar fight for Mako's benefit, Bolin trying to assume the roles of both the drunk and the "hero." It got progressively more ridiculous until the two of them were collapsed on the floor in giggles, and Korra's hair was an absolute disaster. And once the hands on the clock passed one in the morning, Mako packed his half-conscious brother off to bed before turning to his girlfriend, splayed out on the sofa, rumpled and gorgeous and smiling.

"What?" she said as he caught him staring at her.

Without words, he turned off the lamps until the only light was coming from his bedroom and the windows that faced the street. And then he stood before her, doing his best imitation of gallantry, and offered her his hand. The radio was still playing, and it was a slow song.

"We didn't get to finish that dance," he said.

She grinned in the dark as she took his hand and tried to fix her dress. "Asami was right," she said. "You're pretty bad at it."

"Shut up," he said, and he pulled her close, one arm looped around her and one holding hers between them. And by feel and by memory, he found her mouth with his and tasted the lingering traces of alcohol and mint on her tongue.

When he broke the kiss, she settled her head into the crook of his neck and shut her eyes, falling into the swaying rhythm he established and remembering what he'd said to her earlier.

Without completely understanding why, she discovered that the corners of her eyes were stinging, and pressure was gathering in her chest. Mako stopped moving when he felt her drag in a ragged breath that sounded half like a sob. "Korra," he whispered, pressing his lips to her cheek and finding tears there.

She could barely draw enough air in to speak, and the words came out in gulps and gasps. "I just…I just feel like I'm failing. I don't know what I'm doing, what I'm even supposed to do. I feel powerless." She was sagging into his chest, and he held her as tight as he could, trying to breathe for both of them. "And I don't talk because I'm afraid and I'm angry and I'm sad all the time, and I feel bad for feeling that way. But I'm not helping anybody, and I feel like a fraud, and I'm just scared that everyone will see."

Mako felt tears gathering in his own eyes, and he continued to listen quietly as she poured out everything, everything that had happened at City Hall, between she and Tenzin, everything that made her hate and doubt herself, and her fear that he—that everyone—would be disappointed in her. And every time she confessed something, he squeezed her harder and brushed his lips against her hairline, her eyelids, her cheeks. And he let her cry until she was spent and they were just standing there in the dark, breathing in time with the music.

After shutting off the radio, Mako led Korra to the bathroom and sat her down on the edge of the tub. He didn't turn on the light but found a clean wash rag by feel and wet it in the sink. Then he wiped the cool cloth across her cheeks and forehead, like his mother used to do when he was upset. And he kissed her and told her he loved her so much it scared him sometimes, that he believed in her without conditions or doubts or reservations. That she was his lover and his Avatar and he wouldn't for a second have anyone else in either role.

She made him stop talking for fear she would start crying again but kissed him and thanked him and allowed him to lead her back to the bedroom where he helped her get out of her dress and into something comfortable. And when his hands traced the gentle curves of her back and hips and felt the surprising softness of her skin, it wasn't quite sexual (not that they would have done anything with Bolin in the next room), but it was intimate in a way that neither could describe and drove both to seek the security of each other's arms as they drifted off to sleep, bare legs tangled in each other, her head pillowed against his chest.

* * *

Hey! Thanks for all the reviews! This started out kind of pointless, but the response encouraged me to keep going, and it's honestly been fun to explore this relationship from so many different angles. Oh, and I had a blast working Asami into this chapter (I like the idea that she probably doesn't have time for a commitment right now but she's getting tail where she can). There will be one more chapter after this (and yes, there will be smut you pervs) that should tie things up, and then I've got another Makorra project in the works. If that ship isn't to your taste, then first of all, why have you read this far? But second of all, go check out "Never Have I Ever," which features the whole Krew and is a lot less shippy.


	5. Chapter 5

Korra was pretty sure no one else slept like Mako. He lay on his stomach, a pillow clutched underneath him like someone might take it from him. Yet his face was relaxed, almost boyish, his unusually long eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks, his thick eyebrows slightly raised as if something in his dream had surprised him.

Tentatively, she reached out a hand to his bare shoulder and traced the lines of his muscles, the gentle curve where his deltoid melted into his shoulder blade, the ridges of his upper ribs the sharp cleft of his spine. They were both fit, but where her body was lush and abundant, his was taut and lean, his skin stretched over his bones and muscles like there wasn't any to spare. Its surface was cool underneath her hand, but a pool of warmth began where the sheet covered him right above the line of his shorts. But no, she didn't want to wake him just yet. His breathing was quiet, just barely punctuating the silence of the room, washed in the half-light of an overcast dawn. She wasn't naturally an early riser, so this was a rare opportunity to just observe.

In the end it was thirst that drove her out of bed. Between the alcohol and the sobbing, she was spent of moisture, and she wanted to be rid of the unpleasantness in her mouth before he woke up.

The saffron robe she used yesterday was draped over a chair. She threw it on over her tank top and underwear, hiking the fabric up over the sash so that she wouldn't trip. This was one of the robes Pema had given the boys on Air Temple Island, but she had never actually seen Mako wear it. It was simple monk garb, durable, nothing fancy, but he had run his calloused fingers gingerly over the careful hand-worked stitches like they were butterfly wings that would fall apart if he rubbed too hard.

The little kitchen was dark, and she felt her way to the sink, turning it on cold and drinking directly from the faucet. She swished water in her mouth and spat it out twice before fumbling in the cupboard for a mug and taking long drinks that soothed her scratchy throat.

While she stood there, a light appeared down the hallway as a door opened, and she saw Bolin's stocky silhouette take shape, a bag slung over one shoulder and Pabu on the other.

"Hey," she whispered, not wanting to take him by surprise.

"Hey yourself," he whispered back. "This is a little early for you, no?"

"A little." She smiled. "I couldn't get back to sleep."

"You doing ok?" he asked. "Last night, I thought I heard…"

She waved him off. "I'm fine now."

"Is Mako…you know…you need me to tell him what for, or…?" He pounded a meaty fist into his other hand and gave the side eye to Mako's bedroom door.

She nearly choked on her water as she stifled a laugh. "No," she said, trying to recover. "Mako's been a good boy. I've just been having a rotten week is all. Avatar stuff. I just had to, you know, get it out."

"Well, you know who to come to."

"I sure do." She opened her arms, and he hugged her around the waist while she stuck her chin into the shoulder that was not supporting a fire ferret.

"For what it's worth," he said, clapping her on the back just hard enough and pulling away. "You're my favorite Avatar."

She didn't have a response for that, so she pinched his ear and just said, "Have a good practice." And with that he was out the door, and she was left to tiptoe back to Mako's room and watch him sleep some more.

His eyes cracked just a sliver when her weight caused the mattress to dip, and she froze, half hoping he would go back to sleep, half hoping he wouldn't. She couldn't decide.

"Morning," he groaned behind closed eyes, rolling over on his side to open up a place for her against his chest.

"Sorry," she whispered, settling her head on the pillow right next to him and tangling her legs with his.

"Why you wake?" His words were slurred with grogginess.

"Thirsty," she said.

"Oh." He was quiet for a long time, and she thought he had fallen asleep again. "Bolin leave?" he said, louder this time, making her jump just a little bit.

"Yeah."

"Ooohhh," he said, his eyes opening and lips turning up in a sultry grin. He shifted, and she could feel a hint of morning wood brushing up against her thigh. His face looked so stupid, sleepy and aroused all at the same time that she couldn't help but laugh at him and teasingly kick him away. He responded by rolling half on top of her, trapping her legs with his and pinning her head to the pillow with a kiss. His mouth was soft and slow, nipping at hers tenderly, his tongue poking out just slightly to touch her bottom lip, his hand reaching up behind her neck to tangle in her hair and cradle her head.

She let her hands run absently across the broad expanse of his back, her fingernails outlining the grooves and hollows she had memorized earlier. Breaking away from his mouth, she kissed his cheekbones, his eyes, the tip of his nose before pressing her forehead against his and inhaling deeply, feeling his breath begin to sync up with the rise and fall of her chest.

"You are, you know. You don't have to try," she said after a while.

"Hmmm?" His lips had traveled up to her hairline.

"What you said yesterday. You are what I need. You just are. You don't have to try so hard."

He kissed her mouth again sweetly, dryly. "That's nice of you to say, but it doesn't feel that way sometimes. It's like I can never find the right thing to say. I want to help. I want to make you feel…"

"Mako, I don't even know _what _I'm feeling half the time except confused and frustrated and sometimes angry. I'm not sure what's going on right now or when it's going to end, but sometimes I just need you to be there, to, you know, hold me down and keep me from going _completely_ crazy."

"Judging by the newspaper, it looks like I failed at that at least once this week." She pinched him hard for that, using her toes to dig into the sensitive flesh of his calf, but there was a wicked smirk on her face, which was a good sign.

"You're a jerk, you know that?" she said as she lifted her head and pressed a warm, sucking kiss to his neck.

"Yeah, but you love me anyway." He relaxed his forehead against the pillow while she continued to nibble away at his collarbone, but his legs worked hers apart so that he could rest his hips between them and feel every curve and jut of her body against his.

Korra loved the feel of him on top of her. Oh, she liked tackling and pinning him to the bed or the floor or a practice mat or whatever too, but his gentle weight anchored her to the earth when she sometimes felt like she could spin off into oblivion. She could wrap her exhausted limbs around him and cling to him, reminding herself that she was flesh. Human. That she was allowed to be.

His arousal was pressed against the grooves of her hip, and she could feel hers building like an ache in her groin. She pulled his mouth to hers and let her lips and tongue move against his in slow, velvety waves, her hands skimming down his waist, gingerly touching the burn she had healed two days before. This was their last chance to be together for a while, so she decided to let him take his time. She wanted to feel everything, lock it away in memory for the times when she was alone.

She closed her eyes and moved her hips against his just a little while he cupped her face and breathed against her neck, sucking at her pulse point and moving down her sternum. She felt his hand find its way under her top to massage her right breast, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, trying hard not to push him downward. He would get there in time. Her feet came up around him to dance along his tense, muscled calves, and she sighed contentedly and helped him pull her shirt all the way off so he could take her hardened nipple in his mouth and trail his calloused palms down her sides, over her thighs, and into her underwear to cup her buttocks.

His hands were marvelous—strong, of course, rough in places and soft in others, his fingers long and unexpectedly slender. She loved the way they fit between hers, the way their hands found each other in the dark. And she loved the pressure of them on the small of her back, on her chest, at the nape of her neck when they kissed and touched each other. She loved how they found the lines of her underthings and slipped inside to feel her wet and tense, like they were doing now. With his left arm underneath her hips, he lifted her up, and she cocked her left leg to help him finish undressing her before sinking under him again as he kissed and massaged the underside of her breasts one more time before trailing wet kisses southward.

He buried his face in the hollow spot where her leg joined her pelvis, and she unfurled her body with a moan, stretching her legs out and curling her toes in anticipation of what was to come. When his mouth was on her, lips playing at the top and tongue teasingly darting inside, she realized how extra sensitive she was after their activities over the past few days and hissed through her teeth at the intensity of the contact. He took that as encouragement and pressed his mouth against her harder, gripping her hips and pulling her taut like a piece of rubber stretched to the point of snapping.

She placed her hands on his head and enjoyed the feeling of his mouth washing over her for a long time. But it wasn't quite enough. The tension was building, but she felt empty, weightless. "I need you in me," she whispered, pulling him upward by the hair and guiding his face to hers as he wiped his mouth and settled against the hollow of her body.

As it had before, the head of his penis entering her came with a gasp and the strange sensation of being stretched, both painful and glorious all at once. She reached down to grip his backside and urged him forward, guiding him into her as she reflexively undulated her hips and brought him home. They moved together rhythmically, slowly at first and then quickening, the heat and pressure building between them, gathering like a storm ready to break.

She needed him deeper, so she brought her legs up along his back, pulling her own thighs forward. He took the hint and lifted her lower half up, grabbing a pillow and putting it under her hips so that he could push back against her, falling harder against her, noises escaping their lips each time they made contact.

Korra desperately sought relief, sweat gathering at her hairline and gliding down her face. She bit his neck and shoulders, grabbed at every inch of skin she could find. "I'm close," she gasped, and he picked up the pace, slamming into her. And the colors burst behind her eyes, and she could hear her own voice calling out for him loudly and uncontrollably (good thing they were alone). His breathing was quickening also, and she felt him cling to her as she continued to jerk and thrust against him, digging with her nails and leaving marks in his pale flesh. And then he came in hot swells inside of her, reaching for her face and pressing his mouth feverisly against hers.

"Are you sure we can't just run away?" she whispered into his hair as they recovered, slowly. And he laughed breathlessly, kissing her bare shoulder and pulling out of her with a groan.

"There'd be a manhunt. I have a brother to take care of. You have, you know, a planet. I could only keep you to myself for so long before they'd come roast me alive."

"I'd never let them," she said, taking his face in her hands and kissing him gently.

Without realizing it, they fell asleep again, and she woke to find him sitting, dressed, on her side of the bed, setting a cup of tea on the table next her and reaching over to push the hair from her face.

"Back to the world today, love. I have to work later. I'll give you a ride home on the way."

She smiled, "But it's not _on _the way."

"It doesn't matter. Besides, I want to show you something first."

* * *

Korra tried to peek her head over Mako's shoulder to scan for landmarks that might tell her where they were going. The wind lashed the stray hairs that escaped from her helmet against her neck and shoulders, and she relished the feeling of the motorcycle vibrating and accelerating beneath them. It was different from riding a polar bear dog, wilder somehow, a new kind of thrill.

She was incognito again, wrapped up in Mako's grey coat, while he wore his beat cop uniform. He'd refused to say exactly where he was taking her, and her sense of direction failed her once they vanished into the winding side-streets and alleys that only a kid who'd spent half a lifetime mapping the most discreet path from one place to another could possibly know. Gradually, however, she noticed that the buildings were getting blockier and closer together, awnings looming over the narrow by-ways, laundry dangling out of windows and drunks rousing from their late-morning slumber at the roar of the machine speeding past.

It was when they reached the square that she remembered she'd seen this place before, just never during the day. Mako came to a stop and let down the kickstand by a curb. They kept their helmets on.

"This is Dragon Flats, isn't it," she stated, rather than asked. "This is…"

"Yeah," he said.

"It looks different."

"It is. I came by here on a call earlier in the week. I thought you might…"

"Yeah," she cut him off. And they stood by the bike and watched quietly.

The square was alive. On one side, scaffolds were being dismantled from the facades of apartment buildings, and on another, a team of earthbenders was resurfacing the street, working behind a crew that was laying new sewer pipe. It was still a poor neighborhood. Kids in bare feet and second-hand clothing were playing in a group, and adults were carting meager belongings into their dwellings. But unlike last time, there was no terror. Still, Mako kept them at a distance, knowing as only someone from this sort of place could know that his uniform might give some people the jitters.

"People are just starting to move back in," he explained. "I don't think it was Amon's intent for this neighborhood to get hid during the raids, but there was a lot of collateral damage. A lot of people were displaced."

"I doubt he cared," she returned bitterly.

"Ironically, being carted off to prison probably saved a lot of lives here. I doubt everyone moved back, but the neighborhood is getting back on its feet. It takes time, but things will heal."

In her head, she was reliving that night, her anger and her helplessness and _you're our Avatar too_.

"This was Tenzin," she said. "Tenzin made sure the Council devoted funds to…"

"And you made sure that he made sure. And besides that," he looked at her, willing her to meet his eyes, "They haven't forgotten. What you did that night…it meant something. I saw those people in jail, and it meant something."

"I failed," she said.

"But you tried. You saw an injustice and you tried to fix it. You can't always stop bad things from happening, Korra. You can't fix everyone's life, but it matters that you try. And sometimes it will make a real difference."

She stood there biting her lip, clenching and unclenching her fists restlessly. Mako kept standing there, his eyes scanning the square like he was searching for something. And then…

"There." He pointed at a group of kids, eight, maybe ten years old. One of them, a little girl, was in a short blue dress with a burlap sack wrapped around her waist. Her hair was gathered into three wolf tails, and she was squaring off against a group of boys and girls with her fists raised, and as she came at each of them, striking out in mock fury, they fell to the ground in histrionic fashion. One of them popped a head up and cried out, whining, "Now it's _my _turn to be the Avatar."

In spite of the lump forming in her throat, Korra snorted out a laugh. She put her hands on her hips and cocked an eye at him. "Did you pay those kids or something?"

"I _wish _I were that smart." He grabbed her hand and squeezed it before mounting the motorcycle again. "Come on," he said. "That's all I wanted you to see."

She straddled the seat and wrapped her arms securely around his waist, and as he kicked off from the curb, she leaned her helmet into his back and whispered, "Thanks."

* * *

At the ferry, she gave his coat back and then reached into her pocket and pulled out his apartment key. "In case you need this," she started.

He closed the hand that held the key with his own before pulling her in for a long kiss. "Yours," he said when he pulled away. "Some day, I want to be home for you. But until then, you come over whenever you want. Even if we're not there. You don't even have to tell me first."

She tightened her hold around his neck and closed her eyes.

"Just pick up your clothes," he said.

And she bit his ear, laughing.

It took a while for her to finally pull away from him, to unlatch from the last kiss and _no just one more_. But eventually, she turned toward the ferry and let it take her back to Tenzin and training. Back to apologizing and trying to do better and fucking up again and apologizing some more. Back to being the Avatar. It was all she ever thought she wanted, before she was truly aware of what it meant. And she still wanted it. But now she had something else she wanted too. And that something else would make the burdens easier to carry, the consequences less daunting to face.

_Fin_


End file.
